Ellen Wille
Ellen Wille | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1954 or 1955 (age 71–72) |
| Occupations | Football director and teacher |
| Known for | First woman to speak in the FIFA Congress |
| Height | 1.47 m (4 ft 10 in)[1] |
Ellen Wille (born 1954 or 1955[2]) is a Norwegian football director and teacher known for being the first woman to speak in the FIFA Congress. She is sometimes described as the "mother of football".[3][1]
Biography
[edit]Ellen Wille is from Oslo, Norway,[1] and formerly a secondary school science teacher.[3] Unaware of the fact that football was opened to girls,[2] she initially played handball and joined the amateur handball department of Sportsklubben Frigg in 1971. After using a football during training, she and her teammates formed an unofficial football competition, receiving coverage in the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet. Five years later, claiming that no one took them seriously, Wille joined the Norwegian Football Federation (NFF),[4][3] which have only recognised women's clubs in 1975.[2] Wille became an NFF executive in 1985.[3]
In 1986, during the 45th FIFA Congress, which was held in Mexico, Wille became the first woman to address the FIFA Congress.[5] The audience, which was male-dominated, included then Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) president João Havelange and general secretary Sepp Blatter, who later succeeded Havelange as FIFA president. Although the exact wordings of the speech was lost, FIFA confirmed that she asked Blatter to "draw more attention to women's football, particularly in terms of refereeing and the form of international tournaments".[1] The speech was attributed to help the creation of the 1988 FIFA Women's Invitation Tournament in China[6] and the FIFA Women's World Cup, with its first edition being held also in China in 1991.[7]
Wille's playing career ended in 1993 with Asker Fotball.[3]
See also
[edit]Further reading
[edit]- Bergh, Nicholas (10 August 2023). "Kvinnen som sjokkerte fotballverden". Aftenposten (in Norwegian Bokmål).
References
[edit]- 1 2 3 4 Wright, Katie; Hartley, Sophia (31 October 2024). "Ellen Wille: Speech that changed course of women's football". BBC Sport. Retrieved 1 September 2026.
- 1 2 3 Guillou, Clément (20 June 2019). "Ellen Wille, la Norvégienne qui a défié la FIFA". Le Monde (in French). ISSN 1950-6244. Retrieved 1 September 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 5 Moran, Anaïs (11 June 2019). "Profil Football : Ellen Wille, passeuse décisive". Libération (in French). Retrieved 1 September 2026.
- ↑ Gorman, Sophie (26 June 2019). "Ellen Wille, the mother of women's football". France 24. Retrieved 1 September 2026.
- ↑ Bandyopadhyay, Kausik (3 April 2026). "Introduction: soccer, women and society". Soccer & Society. 27 (2–3). Routledge: 195–206. doi:10.1080/14660970.2025.2603767. ISSN 1466-0970.
- ↑ "A green and gold shirt steeped in history". FIFA Museum. Retrieved 2 September 2026.
- ↑ Crawford, Fiona (27 May 2023). "Lobbying, lamingtons and the long road to 88: early Matildas on the trial Women's World Cup". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2 September 2026.
